He was not armed to wrestle with the storm, To fight for homely truth with vulgar power; Grace looked from every feature, shaped his form, The rose of Academe,--the perfect flower! Such was the stately scholar whom we knew In those ill days of soul-enslaving calm, Before the blast of Northern vengeance blew Her snow-wreathed pine against the Southern palm. Ah, God forgive us! did we hold too cheap The heart we might have known, but would not see, And look to find the nation's friend asleep Through the dread hour of her Gethsemane? That wrong is past; we gave him up to Death With all a hero's honors round his name; As martyrs coin their blood, he coined his breath, And dimmed the scholar's in the patriot's fame. So shall we blazon on the shaft we raise,-- Telling our grief, our pride, to unborn years,-- "He who had lived the mark of all men's praise Died with the tribute of a Nation's tears." SHAKESPEARE TERCENTENNIAL CELEBRATION APRIL 23, 1864 "Who claims our Shakespeare from that realm unknown, Beyond the storm-vexed islands of the deep, Where Genoa's roving mariner was blown? Her twofold Saint's-day let our England keep; Shall warring aliens share her holy task?" The Old World echoes ask. O land of Shakespeare! ours with all thy past, Till these last years that make the sea so wide; Think not the jar of battle's trumpet-blast Has dulled our aching sense to joyous pride In every noble word thy sons bequeathed The air our fathers breathed! War-wasted, haggard, panting from the strife, We turn to other days and far-off lands, Live o'er in dreams the Poet's faded life, Come with fresh lilies in our fevered hands To wreathe his bust, and scatter purple flowers,-- Not his the need, but ours! We call those poets who are first to mark Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn,-- Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark, While others only note that day is gone; For him the Lord of light the curtain rent That veils the firmament. The greatest for its greatness is half known, Stretching beyond our narrow quadrant-lines,-- As in that world of Nature all outgrown Where Calaveras lifts his awful pines, And cast from Mariposa's mountain-wall Nevada's cataracts fall. Yet heaven's remotest orb is partly ours, Throbbing its radiance like a beating heart; In the wide compass of angelic powers The instinct of the blindworm has its part; So in God's kingliest creature we behold The flower our buds infold. With no vain praise we mock the stone-carved name Stamped once on dust that moved with pulse and breath, As thinking to enlarge that amplest fame Whose undimmed glories gild the night of death: We praise not star or sun; in these we see Thee, Father, only thee! Thy gifts are beauty, wisdom, power, and love: We read, we reverence on this human soul,-- Earth's clearest mirror of the light above,-- Plain as the record on thy prophet's scroll, When o'er his page the effluent splendors poured, Thine own "Thus saith the Lord!"